Deputy CFO

When Antoine Deschêne (*) goes on a mission

(*) As a measure of confidentiality, the identity of the interim manager and the client are changed

 

1. BACKGROUND

This client WAYDEN is one of the leaders in specialized distribution in Europe on the BtoB market as well as on the BtoC market. The group achieved €1.9 billion in turnover in 2018, and is experiencing strong growth (its size has doubled in the last 5 years) linked to market dynamics and a sustained external growth strategy. The client is aiming for a turnover of €3bn by 2025.

The group’s governance is based on an Executive Committee (executive governance of BtoB and BtoC activities) led by a CEO, assisted by the Chief Financial Officer and the Group HR Director, and is owned by a well-known private equity fund.

It is a group that integrates purchasing, logistics and data management functions across the board, enabling it to distribute its products efficiently through different sales channels, brands or brands, and thus address all customers in its sector.

Faced with this significant growth, the Finance organization needs to transform and strengthen itself with the creation of a Deputy CFO position. The objective is to take charge of corporate and operational issues in the Finance perimeter alongside the Chief Financial Officer, to build the team aligned to achieve the group’s ambitious development objectives.

A prestigious headhunting firm was recently mandated for this purpose.

In the meantime, the growth of the activity as well as urgent and strategic projects forced the Management to put in place an interim manager in this position as soon as possible while waiting for the incumbent. The mission was entrusted to WAYDEN exclusively.

 

2. DISPOSITION

To carry out such a mission, Benoit DURAND TISNES has selected a high-level Finance CEO, with a background in distribution groups on similar scopes (around €2 billion in turnover). Once this type of profile was identified, the key to the manager’s choice lay mainly in his personality. The risk for a profile of this level is to remain in a high “status” position, while the situation and especially the culture of the client group requires extreme operationality. Antoine DESCHENE is the perfect candidate in this sense.

 

Focus on the Interim Manager course

Antoine DESCHENE was initially a civil engineer from the French Mining Industry, a training that he completed a few years later with a Finance course at INSEAD. He has a strong background as a CFO in the Media and Business Travel industry, where he managed large multi-country, multi-cultural and remote teams. He knows very well how to handle all aspects of cash flow and financing. Over the past few years, he has carried out 2 major transition missions on subjects of transformation of the finance function in BtoB and BtoB distribution groups. But it is above all his personality on this mission that makes the difference; While having a natural authority, he is a calm, reassuring, simple, precise and above all accessible man. This last point is a requirement of the principals as the culture of this group is resolutely oriented towards action and business. He is therefore as comfortable with the accounting teams to listen, organize and launch projects, as with the general management to postpone and decide.

 

3. MISSION

The management of this group called on WAYDEN exclusively to put in place one of their interim managers in order to ensure as quickly as possible:

• The start of this project to organize the Finance Department by relieving the DG Finance of a number of subjects as quickly as possible,
• To prepare the future organization as part of the current recruitment.

 

The subjects immediately concerned are of 2 kinds:

Within Corporate Finance:

1/ reporting, consolidation, budget and strategic plan activities, currently structured and underway around a consumer manager and his team,

2/ activities related to the central purchasing office (full-fledged cross-functional BU) around its accounting director, a back office (35 p.) and a management control team,

3/ take charge of the treasury/financing part of the group (1 treasury director and an external firm) which is historically within the scope of the central purchasing office, and ensure its long-term development,

4/ Supervise the accounting and management control team

Within the operational BUs:

Take charge of and ensure the “dotted-line” (Business partner) management of the Finance teams in the BUs (about 10 people) in liaison with the local operational bosses, and the newly appointed CEO of the BtoB activity, the BUs being based in France and abroad (about 20%).

 

4. ASSESSMENT

The mission was a real success, which allowed the client group to structure a new function within a Finance team that had been created by the Finance DG himself. Beyond the size of the scope managed, the real underlying objective of this mission was as much to ensure the successful implementation of this new layer of management in a rotating team, as to make this organization work in the eyes of the CFO, who also had to transform his responsibilities to be able to be confident and move up a notch to focus on strategy and high-level operations medium- and long-term balance sheet of the company.